Environmental Progress - Winter 2005

Comprehensive Study of Chicago Area Waterways Moves to Next Step

Evaluation of current and potential uses completed: Stakeholders to consider potential for further upgrades

The first comprehensive and in-depth look at the quality and potential uses of the Chicago Waterway System in more than 30 years has been completed and stakeholders will now evaluate the logistics of implementing more stringent standards to increase recreational use and protect aquatic life.

The Use and Attainability Analysis (UAA) conducted for Illinois EPA by Camp, Dresser & McKee, Inc., a nationally recognized water quality and environmental management firm, involved the Chicago River, its two main branches (North Branch and South Branch), the Cal-Sag Channel, the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, and tributaries extending from the metro Chicago area to the Lockport vicinity, as well as the Lake Calumet and Calumet River system.

The study, begun in early 2003, also drew upon an extensive public outreach to local municipal authorities, industrial discharges and other interest groups and a stakeholder advisory group.

It concluded that "secondary contact standards" in effect since the early 1970s, involving only "incidental and accidental" human contact and that did not provide for balanced aquatic wildlife, could be upgraded on several segments. It found that improved wastewater treatment, stream aeration stations and the Tunnel and Reservoir Project (TARP) had contributed to substantial improvement in water quality throughout the Chicago metro area, and increased recreational use and fish populations had resulted.

Industrial and domestic wastewater domination, coupled with frequent combined sewer overflows (CSOs) were the main reasons the waterways' initial standards were set below Clean Water Act (CWA) goals.

The UAA process is the first step in determining to what extent, if any, upgrades in standards are appropriate. It tests existing and potential waterway uses against six factors to judge whether CWA goals are achievable. If one or more of six specific factors applies, then there are justifiable reasons the goals can not reasonably be met. Two of the factors center on naturally occurring conditions, such as high bacteria from waterfowl or circumstances of low or no flow, and three of the factors concern irreversible human caused changes and conditions, such as sheet pilingwalls along the Chicago River banks and artificial hydraulic features, such as dams, locks and channelized river segments. The sixth factor centers on economics, and a detailed engineering analysis still underway will provide the cost and feasibilities of the various management options, with eliminating combined sewer overflows and disinfection of treated wastewater discharges expected to be two of the most costly.

The UAA team spent two years assembling all the useable data they could retrieve, and conducted recreational and aquatic wildlife habitat surveys. The Metropolitan Water Reclamation District and Midwest Generation, the wastewater treatment authority and the electric power generation company, respectively, as well as other government agencies, also contributed several million dollars worth of studies and analyses.

The main findings of the data collection and analysis efforts concluded, with the exception of a few parameters, the chemical quality of the waterways is currently meeting federal Clean Water Act goal criteria. The main exceptions are dissolved oxygen, bacteria, temperature and, to a minor extent, silver.

Presently, existing Secondary Contact dissolved oxygen criteria are not being met, sometimes as a result of physical and structural circumstances inherent in the waterway but more often as a result of CSOs.

Temperature issues are associated with Midwest Generation power plants. CSO related floatable pollutants are apparent throughout the system following rain events not wholly captured by TARP. However, control of floatables is a CWA requirement, not subject to UAA discretions.

Swimming is not an existing use anywhere in the Chicago area waterways, and no entity is planning for its occurrence in the foreseeable future. Hand and motor powered recreational boating, fishing, shoreline activities and commercial boating and barging are existing uses throughout all of the Chicago area waterways except the Chicago Sanitary & Ship Canal, where, for the most part, only power boating and commercial traffic has been documented.

Physical habitat limitations, in many cases irreversible, are preventing the attainment of a balanced warm water aquatic ecosystem in every reach of the Chicago Area Waterways System.

The Stakeholders Group recommended that eight of the 14 segments evaluated should be upgraded to "modified warm-water aquatic life use" and should be protective of year-round native fish and bugs and worms that are moderately tolerant of fair to poor habitat conditions. They recommended "limited warm-water aquatic life use" for the other six segments that would be protective of passage of fish, bugs and worms that are tolerant of largely irreversible habitat conditions, such as channelized waterways and walled-in banks. On the recreational use side, the Stakeholders Group recommended all but one segment be protected for "limited contact recreation use" including incidental body contact during recreational boating (kayaking, canoeing, jet skiing) and limited shoreline contact, such as wading and fishing during the March 1 through Nov. 30 period. For the other remaining segment, the Chicago and Sanitary Ship Canal, "recreational navigation use" was recommended, protecting for non-contact activities, such as pleasure power boating and commercial boating operations.

The timeline for concluding the UAA hinges in large part on when the detailed engineering analyses will be completed. The present schedule is for late 2005. Additionally, IEPA is still exploring the appropriateness of existing dissolved oxygen and temperature criteria. Discussions on temperature, which began and are still being worked out in a separate UAA on the Lower Des Plaines River, will soon intensify and carry over to the Chicago area waterway UAA. Adding another few years to allow for permit reissuance and construction, it may be another five years before the goals identified in the UAA are achieved.

Faced with new bacteria guidance from USEPA, and knowing that the UAA derived standards and remedies would take several years to implement, IEPA and other stakeholders kicked off the UAA process by designing and implementing a health advisory program to warn the public about inappropriate uses of the waterways, such as swimming and water skiing. A pamphlet and sign were designed for voluntary distribution and posting by landowners and their tenants situated along the rivers. A copy of the pamphlet and further information on the UAA are available at: www.chicagoareawaterways.org.